Ukraine’s president has claimed Kyiv’s troops have full control over the Russian town of Sudzha, which had a prewar population of 5,000 people and contains infrastructure pumping Russian gas towards Europe.

Sudzha, roughly six miles (9.6km) inside Russian territory, is the biggest of 80 settlements that Ukraine claims to have taken during the 10 days since its surprise incursion into Russia began.

“General Syrskyi reported on the completion of the liberation of the town of Sudzha from the Russian military. A Ukrainian military commandant’s office is being established there now,” said Volodymyr Zelenskiy, after receiving a briefing from the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, on Thursday.

The claim could not be independently verified, but a Ukrainian television channel broadcast a report from Sudzha on Wednesday suggesting the town was under Ukrainian control.

While some residents have remained, sheltering from the fighting in basements, most have been evacuated. “We hid in the bushes,” said one, Tatyana Anikeyeva, speaking to Russian television from a facility helping evacuees. “Volunteers were handing out water, food, bread to people on the go. The sound of the cannonade continued without any break. The house was shaking.”

Sudzha hosts a measuring station for Russian natural gas arriving from western Siberia, which then flows through Ukrainian pipelines to Europe, accounting for about 3% of European gas imports.

“Smart people in Kyiv have calculated that they should take over this hub, in order that the Russian army will have to destroy it [to take it back],” Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister, said on a state television talkshow. “This means deliveries of gas to Europe will be stopped, because of Russia’s actions, not Ukraine’s. By the way, this will hit Hungary and Slovakia very hard,” he added. So far there has been no indication of a disruption to the gas flow.

Both Ukraine and Russia claimed advances elsewhere in Kursk region on Thursday. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were continuing to “repel the attempted incursion of the Ukrainian armed forces” and had re-established control over the settlement of Krupets.

At the same time, Kursk’s acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, ordered the evacuation of Glushkovo region, 28 miles north-west of Sudzha, suggesting a fear that Ukraine’s advance would continue. More than 120,000 residents of the region have already been evacuated, according to local authorities.

Challenger 2 tanks donated to Ukraine by Britain have been used in active combat on Russian territory, Sky News reported on Thursday. The UK Ministry of Defence did not comment on the claim but said “operations inside Russia” were a permissible use of tanks and other arms provided to Ukraine.

Kyiv has said part of the goal of the operation is to create a “buffer zone” that would stop Russian forces from attacking Ukraine, but it is not clear how much territory is involved, and for how long it will attempt to hold.

Also on Thursday, Ukraine’s SBU security services released a video it claimed featured dozens of Russian troops who had surrendered and had been taken prisoner. “We have a new replenishment of our ‘exchange fund’,” said Zelenskiy, commenting on the new prisoners of war. Thousands of Ukrainians remain in Russian captivity and Kyiv hopes to rejuvenate a stalled process of prisoner exchanges. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Thursday he had had a “proactive conversation” with his Russian counterpart over the possibility of organising a new exchange.

Many Russian officials have sought to play down the Ukrainian attack, the first time that parts of Russian territory have been occupied by a foreign army since the second world war. Vladimir Putin has avoided calling it an “invasion” or “incursion” and has instead announced an “anti-terrorist operation” in the area.

Speaking at the United Nations on Wednesday, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the body, Dmitry Polyansky, called the Ukrainian assault on Kursk a “mad and reckless operation” and said Russia would soon restore control. “What’s happening in Kursk is the incursion of terrorist sabotage groups, so there is no frontline as such … There is an incursion because there are forests that are very difficult to control,” said Polyansky.

The longer the Ukrainian advance continues, the harder it is to brush it off as a minor setback. On state television Fedorov offered rare criticism of official Russian messaging, bemoaning the “constant lies coming from our side about the weakness of the Ukrainian army”. He said it was time to admit that the Ukrainian advance was serious and would require a sustained effort to repel.

• Russia is urgently advertising for trench diggers to build defences in the Kursk region because of Ukraine’s surprise invasion, according to reports. Figures quoted by the BBC’s Russian service from the jobs site Avito suggested wages equating to US$2,500 a month or more. Ads call for labourers and general workers with no experience, but also excavator operators, and promise the work will be “outside the combat zone” with “no danger”. The Institute for the Study of War, citing satellite images, has said Russia is hurriedly trying to fortify a line 10 miles (16km) away from Ukraine’s frontline in Kursk.

• The UN human rights office (UNHCR) said it had asked Moscow to let it visit Russian regions affected by Ukraine’s cross-border campaign. The office had previously asked Russia repeatedly for access to both Russian territory and to Ukrainian territories under Russia’s control, to no avail, said Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the UNHCR. In contrast, Ukraine has said it will open humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians towards both Russia and Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials have promised access for international humanitarian organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN. In Kursk, Agence France-Presse said its reporters saw about 500 evacuees from border areas queueing for food and clothes being distributed by the Russian Red Cross.

• Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian commander in chief, said Ukraine had set up a military commandant’s office in occupied Kursk. “We are moving forward in Kursk region. A military commandant’s office has been created which must ensure order and also all the needs of the local population,” Syrskyi said, adding that the office would be headed by Maj Gen Eduard Moskalyov. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced his troops had full control over the Russian town of Sudzha, which had a prewar population of 5,000 people and contains infrastructure pumping Russian gas towards Europe, writes Shaun Walker.

• Dan Sabbagh writes that the Ukrainian incursion has been good for morale at home but has obscured the difficulties Ukraine is facing in the central section of Donbas oblast, where Russian forces have been gaining a mile a week since 1 July – pressing towards Pokrovsk, a strategic road and rail junction

• Russia said on Thursday that its forces had taken control of Ivanivka, 16km (10 miles) from Pokrovsk. It was reported by Reuters, which said it could not independently verify the claim, but said Ukraine had reported the heaviest fighting in weeks near Pokrovsk.

• Ukraine’s special forces captured a group of more than 100 Russian soldiers in Kursk, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Thursday, adding that Ukrainian forces also took over their “sprawling, concrete and well-fortified company stronghold”. The 102 servicemen of Russia’s 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment and its “Akhmat” unit are the largest group of soldiers to be captured at the same time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, according to the SBU. Pictures showed dozens of Russian servicemen sitting or lying on the ground in a concrete bunker with their helmets and weapons piled up near the walls. The prisoners would eventually be swapped for Ukrainian prisoners of war, the SBU said.

• A Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber crashed in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, killing one person out of a crew of four despite them managing to eject, said the regional governor, Igor Kobzev, citing the defence ministry. The survivors were being treated for their injuries. A technical malfunction was blamed but this could not be independently confirmed.

Thailand’s parliament will vote on whether to approve Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as a future leader in a vote on Friday that follows more than a week of political upheaval.

Paetongtarn, 37, was selected as a prime ministerial candidate following 24 hours of frantic negotiations triggered by a court ruling that ousted the former prime minister Srettha Thavisin.

Thailand’s parliament convened on Friday morning and endorsed Paetongtarn’s nomination for prime minister, with a vote expected later in the day.

She is the youngest of three children born to the divisive political heavyweight Thaksin Shinawatra. Her father was ousted in a coup in 2006, but remains hugely influential.

If approved by parliament, Paetongtarn will be the fourth member of the Shinawatra family to become prime minister. Thaksin’s brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, was prime minister briefly during 2008, while his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was prime minister from 2011 until 2014. Both Somchai and Yingluck were forced from office by court rulings.

Paetongtarn would be the second woman to lead Thailand, after Yingluck.

Lawmakers will vote on Friday whether to approve Paetongtarn. She must secure 247 votes from the 493 members currently in parliament.

Paetongtarn proved popular among her father’s loyal supporters during last year’s election, but is politically inexperienced, and, if approved, will take office at a time of political instability.

Thaksin returned to Thailand last year, ending 15 years in exile, after making an unlikely deal with his former enemies in the royalist military establishment – a controversial arrangement considered a betrayal by some of the party’s former supporters.

The old foes were united by a common enemy; a popular youthful party, Move Forward, that captured the most votes after promising reforms to make Thailand more democratic and break up big monopolies. Wednesday’s court ruling ousting Srettha from office has underlined the delicate nature of this arrangement.

Srettha, a real-estate tycoon, led the country for less than one year, and is the fourth Thai prime minister in 16 years to be removed by Constitutional Court judgments. He was found to have violated the constitution by appointing a minister who had served jail time – a verdict many consider political.

A week earlier, the court disbanded the Move Forward party over its promise to reform the country’s strict lese majesty law.

“In the span of one week, the court has disfranchised more than 14 million voters by dissolving their party of choice, and unseated a democratically elected prime minister,” said Napon Jatusripitak, visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, who added the verdict amounted to a judicial coup.

Speaking after she was named as Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidate, Paetongtarn said she respects Srettha and thinks what happened to him was unfortunate, but added: “The country must move on.”

“I have confidence in Pheu Thai. I have confidence in all government coalition parties to bring our country out of the economic crisis,” she said.

Paetongtarn played a prominent role in Pheu Thai’s election campaign, capitalising on the popularity of her family name among older rural voters in the north and northeast. She campaigned while pregnant, video-calling into rallies when she was no longer able to travel. However, she did not ultimately run to be prime minister last year.

Ken Lohatepanont, a researcher focused on Thai politics, said the coalition formed by Pheu Thai and its old enemies would probably still hold, given both sides want to keep Move Forward’s successor party, known as the People’s Party, out of power.

“But Thaksin’s freedom of navigation is being increasingly limited,” he added, saying it has put Thaksin in the uncomfortable position of selecting his daughter to run as prime minister – a prospect the family reportedly finds uncomfortable, given the frequency of high stakes legal cases launched against politicians.

Dozens of Israeli settlers, some wearing masks, attacked a Palestinian village near the city of Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank, burning cars and killing at least one person.

The Palestinian health ministry said one Palestinian was killed and another critically wounded by Israeli settlers’ gunfire during the attack in the village of Jit, the latest in a series of attacks by violent settlers in the West Bank.

Footage shared on social media showed cars and houses on fire after the attacks.

The Israeli military said police and army units intervened and arrested one Israeli. It condemned the attack, which it said diverted security forces from other responsibilities. It said it was examining reports about the death of the Palestinian.

The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement saying he viewed the attack with “utmost severity”.

“Those responsible for any offence will be apprehended and tried,” it said.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog condemned the attack as a “pogrom”.

“I strongly condemn this evening’s pogrom in Samaria,” Herzog wrote on X, formerly Twitter, using the name of the biblical province corresponding to the northern West Bank.

“This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding settler population and the settlement as a whole and the name and position of Israel in the world during a particularly sensitive and difficult period,” he added.

Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of standing by and allowing groups of violent settlers to attack their houses and villages and the attacks have attracted increasing concern internationally.

Violence in the West Bank has surged since the Gaza war started on 7 October and Israeli settlements there – considered illegal under international law – have also hit new records.

The White House said late on Thursday attacks by settlers on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank were “unacceptable and must stop.”

“Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account,” a White House spokesperson said.

Netanyahu governs with support of far-right parties advocating more Israeli settlements in the West Bank or even outright annexation. His right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X that the attackers in Jit had “nothing to do with the settlement and the settlers”.

“They are criminals who must be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities with the full force of the law,” he added.

The US and a number of European countries have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and called repeatedly on Israel to do more to curb the attacks.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

A new round of negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and preventing the fighting from escalating into a region-wide conflict got under way in Doha, as the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached a grim milestone of 40,000 people, according to local health authorities.

Mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt met an Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital on Thursday afternoon, with talks expected to continue into the next day. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is not directly participating in the talks, meaning expectations of a breakthrough are low.

While Hamas and Israel agreed in principle last month to implement a three-phase plan publicly proposed by Joe Biden in May, both sides have since requested “amendments” and “clarifications”, leaving talks at an impasse. Gaps include the continuing presence of Israeli troops on the Gaza-Egypt border, the sequencing of a hostage release, and the return of civilians from southern to northern Gaza.

The renewed push for talks is seen as more vital than ever after the 31 July back-to-back assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief. The killings in Beirut and Tehran, which the Lebanese group and Iran have blamed on Israel, threaten to transform the war in Gaza into a region-wide conflict.

It is hoped that a ceasefire in Gaza would lower the temperature in the Middle East and dissuade Iran and Hezbollah from retaliatory action. In an interview with CNN on Thursday, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said talks had begun with a “promising start”, but an immediate agreement is unlikely given the large gaps that remain between the two sides.

He added that the US assessed that Tehran is still determined to respond to Haniyeh’s killing with an attack on Israel. Over the past two weeks, the US has deployed warships, submarines and warplanes to the region to defend Israel from potential attacks from Iran and its network of allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, all of whom have already been drawn into the Gaza war.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been accused of sabotaging the talks for political gain, but reportedly expanded the negotiating team’s mandate before it flew to Doha on Thursday morning.

In a statement on the eve of the talks, Hamas reaffirmed its demands, including that negotiations should focus on implementing the Biden plan rather than allowing Israel to “stall for time”.

Late on Thursday, a US official said the first day of talk had been “constructive”, while a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry confirmed that discusstions would continued into Friday.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, who is reportedly planning an imminent trip to Israel, said in a statement: “We are at a crucial moment for global stability. The coming hours and days could define the future of the Middle East … A ceasefire would not only protect civilians in Gaza, but also pave the way for wider de-escalation and bring much-needed stability.

“It is in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians for a deal to be agreed, urgently. I urge all parties to engage in the negotiations in good faith and show the flexibility needed to reach an agreement.”

As talks were under way in Doha, the Israeli army continued its latest ground operation in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, with local people reporting artillery and aerial attacks, as well as bombings in Rafah. Israeli airstrikes killed 40 people in the strip in the last 24 hours, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, pushing the death toll to 40,005 in 10 months of fighting.

The local authorities do not differentiate between civilian and militant casualties, but 70% are believed to be women and children.

The figure represents almost 2% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, making the Gaza war one of the deadliest of the 21st century to date and by far the bloodiest in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

About 10,000 more people are believed to still be under the rubble, and those who have died from illness, starvation and other hardships caused by the war are not counted in official tolls.

Israel disputes the Gaza toll, but in multiple wars in the blockaded territory over the 17 years since Hamas took over, the UN has found that the local health authority figures are accurate.

Tarneem Hammad, the central Gaza-based advocacy officer for the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Forty thousand lives lost in Gaza – a devastating reminder that behind each number is a story, a family, a future stolen. Let the magnitude not numb us, but rather ignite our resolve to seek justice and peace, and to demand a ceasefire. No more lives should be lost.”

Abu Nidal Eweini, a resident of the central town of Deir al-Balah, told the AP: “Oh Lord, we hope they reach an agreement and the war ends, because the population has been annihilated completely. People have no breath left in them any more. People are tired.”

Also on Thursday, during an address to the Turkish parliament in Ankara, the head of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, vowed to visit the Gaza Strip.

Abbas’s secular Fatah party was exiled from Gaza after a brief civil war with Hamas in 2007, after which the Islamist group took control of the coastal territory. Elected to a five-year term in 2005, the deeply unpopular leader has repeatedly refused to hold elections since.

It was not immediately clear how Abbas, 88, would fulfil his pledge, as Israel controls all of Gaza’s border crossings.

Hamas triggered the war in Gaza with its 7 October attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage. On Thursday, family and friends of the remaining estimated 115 Israelis still in captivity in Gaza protested in favour of a deal outside the Tel Aviv headquarters of Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Five people have been arrested and charged over the death of Matthew Perry, prosecutors said, including the actor’s personal assistant and two doctors.

The doctors supplied the Friends actor, who died at his Los Angeles home in October 2023, with a large amount of ketamine, the US attorney Martin Estrada said, and “took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves”.

Perry, 54, had publicly discussed his issues with addiction. He had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy for anxiety and depression at the time of his death, the Los Angeles medical examiner said in an autopsy report last year, but the examiner found much higher levels of ketamine in the actor’s bloodstream than would be expected from the therapy alone.

The Los Angeles police department and drug enforcement administration said in May that they were working on a joint criminal investigation into how Perry got the prescription medication, and why there was so much of the drug in his system.

“That investigation has revealed a broad underground criminal network responsible for distributing large quantities of ketamine to Mr Perry and others,” Estrada said on Thursday.

“This network included a live-in assistant, various go-betweens, two medical doctors and a major source of drug supply known as, quote: ‘the Ketamine Queen’.”

Estrada said five people had been charged.

“They knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr Perry, but they did it anyways. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr Perry than caring for his wellbeing,” he said.

Documents filed in federal court in California, reported by the New York Times, accuse the five people, who include Perry’s personal assistant, of being involved in a scheme to procure thousands of dollars worth of ketamine and administer it to Perry.

Jasveen Sangha, whom prosecutors said was known as “the Ketamine Queen”, and Salvador Plasencia, a doctor known as “Dr P”, are among those indicted, per the Times. The pair are charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine; distribution of ketamine resulting in death; possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine; and altering and falsifying records related to a federal investigation.

Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s personal assistant, was charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, the Times reported, citing a person with knowledge of the situation. Mark Chavez, a doctor, and Erik Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry, were also charged.

The court documents revealed text messages sent between Plasencia and Chavez in which the former discussed buying ketamine to sell to “victim MP” – Perry.

In the exchange, Plasencia wrote: “I wonder how much this moron will pay”, and “let’s find out”, the Times reported.

Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023. The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office determined the cause of death to be “the acute effects of ketamine”. It said drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder, were contributing factors.

An autopsy found levels of ketamine in his blood similar to levels used during general anesthesia.

“At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,” the autopsy report stated. Perry’s death was ruled an accident, with no evidence of foul play.

Perry, had discussed his history with substance abuse, which he said began at age 14 and intensified during his role on Friends.

Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside Africa.

The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease, Olivia Wigzell, director-general at the Swedish public health agency, told a press conference.

Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, after an outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to other countries.

Wigzell said the person who had been infected had received care and instructions in line with the health agency’s recommendations.

Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of those infected, in a Congolese mining town and warned that it might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.

WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in more than a dozen countries across Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.

So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country – Congo.

“The emergence of a case on the European continent could spur rapid international spread of mpox,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert and professor at Georgetown Law in Washington. “A case in Sweden most likely means dozens of undetected cases in Europe.”

Dr Brian Ferguson of the University of Cambridge said the case in a Swedish traveller was concerning but not surprising, given the severity and spread of the outbreak in Africa.

“There will likely be more here and in other parts of the world as there are currently no mechanisms in place to stop imported cases of mpox happening,” he said.

Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside Africa.

The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease, Olivia Wigzell, director-general at the Swedish public health agency, told a press conference.

Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, after an outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to other countries.

Wigzell said the person who had been infected had received care and instructions in line with the health agency’s recommendations.

Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of those infected, in a Congolese mining town and warned that it might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.

WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in more than a dozen countries across Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.

So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country – Congo.

“The emergence of a case on the European continent could spur rapid international spread of mpox,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert and professor at Georgetown Law in Washington. “A case in Sweden most likely means dozens of undetected cases in Europe.”

Dr Brian Ferguson of the University of Cambridge said the case in a Swedish traveller was concerning but not surprising, given the severity and spread of the outbreak in Africa.

“There will likely be more here and in other parts of the world as there are currently no mechanisms in place to stop imported cases of mpox happening,” he said.

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has made clear he does not yet accept Nicolás Maduro’s claim to have been re-elected as Venezuela’s president, and has suggested fresh elections or a coalition government as potential solutions to the country’s intensifying political crisis.

Maduro’s claim to have won Venezuela’s 28 July vote – despite compelling evidence that he was heavily beaten – has plunged the South American country into uncertainty and spooked regional governments who fear possible conflict and the consolidation of a dictatorship on their doorstep.

Venezuela’s opposition – which has produced proof that its candidate, Edmundo González, trounced Maduro – plans to return to the streets on Saturday for fresh protests despite a harsh government crackdown that has seen more than 1,300 people detained and more than 20 killed.

In an interview with Brazilian radio on Thursday, Lula said Brazilian and Colombian diplomats were exploring possible ways of defusing the crisis but admitted “the political situation is deteriorating in Venezuela”, as were Brazil-Venezuela ties.

Brazil has stopped short of recognizing González’s claim to have won the election, as countries including Argentina, Uruguay and the US have done, but clearly its government has misgivings over Maduro’s widely doubted claim to victory.

Challenged over whether he accepted Maduro’s claim to be president-elect, Lula answered: “Not yet. Not yet. He knows he owes an explanation to Brazilian society and to the world. He knows this.”

Lula said he did not think it right for one country’s president to give opinions about another president’s policies. Asked during an interview with the broadcaster Rádio T whether he was “shilly-shallying” over an election Maduro is widely suspected of stealing, Brazil’s leftwing leader said he did not want to react in a “passionate or hasty” manner.

But Lula did question why detailed election results had not been released and pointedly noted that Maduro had sent election data to “his supreme court” for analysis. Lula insisted that those results needed to be published by a “trustworthy” body. But Maduro has so far refused to release a full breakdown of results from from every polling station, as has traditionally been done in Venezuela, including under Maduro’s mentor Hugo Chávez.

Lula offered two possible solutions to the escalating crisis, as Venezuela’s opposition prepared for its latest anti-Maduro marches on Saturday and the government prepared rallies of its own.

One was creating a national unity government including figures from the opposition. “There are lots of people in my government who didn’t vote for me and I brought everyone together to take part in my government,” said Brazil’s 78-year-old leader, who was re-elected in 2022 after narrowly beating the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula believed the second potential solution was for Maduro – who remains president until the next leader’s inauguration in January, 2025 – to arrange another election.

“If he has good sense … perhaps he could even call new elections, establish a criteria for the participation of all candidates, create a non-partisan electoral committee … and allow observers from the whole world in to see the elections,” Lula suggested.

Maduro and close allies have publicly rejected all talk of repeating July’s vote.

“There will not be another election here because Nicolás Maduro won,” one of the president’s most powerful allies, Diosdado Cabello, said during his night-time television show on Wednesday night, calling such suggestions “stupidity”.

Pro-democracy activists and opposition leaders have also criticised calls for fresh elections or a coalition government given their conviction that González won.

“The election already happened,” González’s most important backer, the opposition leader María Corina Machado, told journalists during an online press conference.

Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the director of the rule of law programme at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank, also questioned such ideas.

“There has to be a transition to a different government, because there were elections. They were horribly unfair and even so the opposition won. So I don’t see an option of … a co-existence government. [Maduro] lost the election,” Taraciuk said.

“No one would go to Lula and say: ‘You know, actually you should create a co-existence government with Bolsonaro.’ No one would even think of that, right? So why would they ask Edmundo González to do it?” Taraciuk added.

Later on Thursday, Colombia’s leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, who spoke with Lula on Wednesday, also contemplated a possible solution on social media, in what appeared to be a coordinated move.

“A political solution for Venezuela that brings peace and prosperity to its people depends on Nicolás Maduro,” Petro wrote, suggesting Maduro look to Colombian history for inspiration.

In 1958, Colombia’s two main political parties – the conservatives and the liberals – sealed a power-sharing pact known as the “Frente Nacional” (National Front) after a decade of horrific political violence known as La Violencia that saw an estimated 200,000 people killed.

Petro said that if “used temporarily” Colombia’s experience could help bring about “the permanent solution” for Venezuela.

Hundreds of student protesters and political activists armed with bamboo sticks, iron rods and pipes have assaulted supporters of the ousted Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and prevented them from reaching the former house of her father, the assassinated independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in Dhaka.

The house in the Dhanmondi area of the capital was turned into a museum to showcase narratives and other objects about a military coup on 15 August 1975, when Rahman was killed along with most of his family members. The house, now called Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, was torched by the protesters hours after Hasina’s downfall on 5 August following an uprising during which more than 300 people were killed.

Rahman is fondly called Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal). Thursday is the anniversary of his death, and Hasina, now self-exiled in India, urged her supporters to commemorate the day by paying respects to him. Previously, 15 August was a public holiday and was observed as a national mourning day by Hasina’s administration.

But that has been cancelled by the interim government led by the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus after the ousting of Hasina, who survived in 1975 along with her younger sister because they were visiting Germany.

On Thursday, the protesters attacked Hasina’s supporters who attempted to get to the site, manhandling many and checking the visitors’ phones and identity cards. Journalists were threatened for filming at the scene, witnesses said.

Another group of protesters on Thursday chanted “Naraye Takbeer, Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great, shout of Allah is great”) as they marched through streets in the area where the museum site remained blocked with barbed-wire fences.

The protesters, who first arrived at Rahman’s house on Wednesday, attacked a prominent actor as she, along with dozens of Hasina’s supporters, reached there to light candles as part of the commemoration.

They held a party overnight using loudspeakers and playing songs as they danced outside the museum, which was set on fire during the anti-government demonstrations earlier this month. Videos of the party went viral on social media.

The protesters said they were out to stop the gathering of Hasina’s supporters as they could attempt to create chaos in the name of commemoration.

Sarjis Alam, an organiser of the student protests, said that they would continue to demand the trial of Hasina as he led a rally on Thursday in Dhaka’s Shahbagh area. Asked about the harassment of journalists by the students and other activists outside the museum, he said he would inquire about that but gave no details.

In the past, large gatherings took place on the premises of the museum, seen by many as a source of inspiration. Hasina had asked supporters earlier this week to “pray for the salvation of all souls by offering floral garlands and praying” outside the museum, in her first public statement since her departure.

With no police in sight, the chaos continued in Bangladesh’s capital throughout Thursday.

Sam Jahan, a video journalist for Reuters, spoke out against the harassment in a Facebook post. “It is fair enough what you, the political activists, student protesters want to achieve, politically. But when you try to stop my rolling camera, resisting the freedom of the press and when you manhandle my colleagues, I will speak up,” Jahan wrote.

The country’s leading English-language Daily Star newspaper said its journalists faced trouble at the scene and were forced to delete photos and videos.

Mujib Mashal, the south Asia bureau chief of the New York Times, said in a video post on X that it was “complete mob rule”.

“The victims of yesterday are perpetrators of today; men armed with clubs and pipes (many identified themselves as BNP and Jamaat) thrashing and chasing away anyone they suspect of being Awami League,” he said.

The protesters have been demanding Hasina go on trial for the killings during weeks-long violence and cases have already been filed against her and other close party colleagues and top police officials.

More than 300 people were killed in unrest that started in July with protests against a quota system for government jobs that later morphed into a movement against what was considered Hasina’s increasingly autocratic administration. The uprising eventually forced Hasina to leave office and flee to India, ending her 15-year rule.

Yunus took over as the interim leader. Sixteen people, including two student protest leaders and others, drawn mainly from civil society, have been included in the interim cabinet.

Yunus chose the new cabinet members after talks between student leaders, civil society representatives and the military.

Russia is putting generative artificial intelligence to work in online deception campaigns, but its efforts have been unsuccessful, according to a Meta security report released on Thursday.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram found that so far AI-powered tactics “provide only incremental productivity and content-generation gains” for bad actors and Meta has been able to disrupt deceptive influence operations.

Meta’s efforts to combat “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platforms come as fears mount that generative AI will be used to trick or confuse people in elections in the United States and other countries.

Russia remains the top source of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” using bogus Facebook and Instagram accounts, David Agranovich, Meta’s security policy director, told reporters.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, those efforts have been concentrated on undermining Ukraine and its allies, according to the report.

As the US election approaches, Meta expects Russia-backed online deception campaigns to attack political candidates who support Ukraine.

Facebook has been accused for years of being used as a powerful platform for election disinformation. Russian operatives used Facebook and other US-based social media to stir political tensions in multiple US elections, including the 2016 election won by Donald Trump.

Experts fear an unprecedented deluge of disinformation from bad actors on social networks because of the ease of using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or the Dall-E image generator to make on demand content in seconds.

AI has been used to create images and videos, and to translate or generate text along with crafting fake news stories or summaries, according to the report.

When Meta scouts for deception, it looks at how accounts act rather than the content they post.

Influence campaigns tend to span an array of online platforms, and Meta has noticed posts on X, formerly Twitter, used to make fabricated content seem more credible. Meta shares its findings with X and other internet firms and says a coordinated defense is needed to thwart misinformation.

“As far as Twitter (X) is concerned, they are still going through a transition,” Agranovich said when asked whether Meta sees X acting on deception tips. “A lot of the people we’ve dealt with in the past there have moved on.”

X has gutted trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts once used to tame misinformation, making it what researchers call a breeding ground for disinformation.

The Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn said the backlash she has received since competing at the Paris Olympics has been “devastating” and pleaded for privacy for her family and friends.

“I really appreciate the positivity and I’m glad I was able to bring some joy into your lives. That’s what I hoped,” Gunn, who is known as B-Girl Raygun, said in an Instagram post on Thursday.

“I didn’t realise that would also open the door to so much hate which has, frankly, been pretty devastating.”

Gunn was lambasted online and in mainstream media after she lost all three of her round robin battles in Paris, where breaking made its Olympic debut. “Well, I went out there and I had fun – I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics and I gave my all. Truly,” Gunn said.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) earlier on Thursday condemned an online petition calling for an investigation into Gunn’s selection for the Paris Olympics, saying it contained falsehoods aimed at inciting hatred against her.

The AOC chief executive, Matt Carroll, said the petition had “stirred up public hatred without any factual basis”, adding that it was “vexatious, misleading and bullying”. Carroll’s statement also said the 36-year-old Gunn had been “selected through a transparent and independent qualification event and nomination process”.

Gunn asked for privacy, saying: “I’d really like to ask the press to please stop harassing my family, my friends, the Australian breaking community and the broader street dance community. Everyone has been through a lot as a result of this, so I ask you to please respect their privacy.”

Gunn said she would take a few weeks of previously planned holiday in Europe and would answer any more questions on her return to Australia. The Change.org petition calling for Gunn to apologise has collected more than 54,000 signatures. The AOC wrote to the organisation asking for it to be removed and the petition has now disappeared from the website.

Breaking is not on the sports programme for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Winston Churchill had painting, Judi Dench is famous for her rude embroidery and Tom Daley has been known to knit at the Olympics. Now researchers say we could all benefit from creative endeavours and that such pursuits have a bigger influence on life satisfaction than having a job.

While arts and crafts have long been used to aid mental health, experts said most research has looked at their effect on patients rather than the general population, and tend to look at specific activities.

However, the researchers have now said such interests could be an important tool for improving public health in general.

Dr Helen Keyes, a co-author of the research from Anglia Ruskin University, said: “It’s quite an affordable, accessible and ultimately popular thing for people to do. And that’s key. You’re not going to be shoving something down people’s throats that they don’t want to do.”

Writing in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, Keyes and colleagues reported how they analysed data from more than 7,000 people aged 16 or over who took part in the face-to-face “taking part survey” by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport between April 2019 and March 2020.

As part of the survey participants were asked to rate various aspects of their wellbeing on 10-point scales, report whether they took part in arts or crafts, and provide demographic details.

The team found that just over 37% of participants reported taking part in at least one art or craft activity in the past 12 months – ranging from painting to pottery and photography.

The researchers then looked at the ratings for wellbeing.

The results revealed that people who engaged with creating arts and crafting had greater ratings for happiness, life satisfaction and feeling that life was worthwhile than those who did not, even after taking into account other factors known to have an impact –including age, gender, deprivation, poor health, and employment status.

Keyes said: “So crafting, in and of itself, is associated with bigger increase [in wellbeing].”

Among other results the team found engaging in arts and crafts was associated with an increase in happiness on a par with ageing by 20 years (as Keyes notes, wellbeing goes up slightly with age), while the sense that life was worthwhile was more strongly associated with crafting than being in employment.

Keyes said: “That was probably our most interesting finding, because you would certainly think you get a lot of your sense of worth from being in employment.” The results, she added, might reflect that not everybody is in a job they find fulfilling, while people often have a sense of mastery or “flow” when undertaking arts and crafts – experiencing control, achievement and self-expression.

While the new study does not compare specific creative activities, may not have captured all such pursuits participants undertook and cannot prove cause and effect, Keyes said smaller clinical trials have suggested engaging in arts and crafts can increase wellbeing.

Keyes also acknowledged the increases in wellbeing associated with creating arts and crafting were very small – on average engaging in such activities was only linked with a 2% higher rating for the feeling that life was worthwhile. But, she said, the results remained meaningful at a population level.

She added: “If you’re a national health service, or you’re a government, seeing a 2% increase in the overall wellbeing of your population is going to be really significant at that kind of national level.”

Keyes said that backing such activities would offer a simpler route for governments to improve the nation’s wellbeing than other factors that are known to have a big effect.

“This is something that that we’re showing can have quite a big effect compared to those other factors,” she said. “But it’s a really quite cheap, easy, accessible thing for us to engage people in.”